The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument which can be used together with a plurality of external memory (or recording) devices and, more particularly, to a technique for controlling transfer of musical tone information (musical tone parameter control information, pitch and tone duration information for automatic performance, and the like).
An example of a conventional electronic musical instrument which can be used together with a plurality of external memory (or recording) devices such as a RAM (Random Access Memory) pack and a magnetic tape recording device is an electronic musical instrument having on its panel surface a save switch, a save indicator, a load switch, and a load indicator for each of the external memory (or recording) devices.
According to such an electronic musical instrument, in order to save musical tone information of a memory of a musical instrument main body to, e.g., a RAM pack, a save switch corresponding to the RAM pack is turned on. In order to save the musical tone information of the memory of the musical instrument main body to a magnetic tape recording device, a save switch corresponding to the magnetic tape recording device is turned on. On the contrary, in order to load the musical tone information from a given external memory (or recording) device to the memory of the musical instrument main body, a load switch corresponding to the given external memory (or recording) device is turned on.
According to the above conventional technique, since the number of switches and indicators to be arranged on the panel surface is large, installation space is increased. In addition, a circuit arrangement relating to the switches and indicators is complicated, and a switching operation is troublesome.